So, after around seven years working full time, which in the traditional British sense would push my age closer to 28-30, I’m now 24 and bored as fuck with my day to day routine. Allow me to sum up what’s happened over the past four years, as those have been the most significant. Worked at an agency as a search engine marketer. Moved out of my house to get away from the unnecessary disputes and dilemmas of my family, causing substantial pressure to understand life quickly. Started a business, Right Casino Media, with my closest friend, David – incidentally, whose house I moved into. Moved into my first flat with long term girlfriend, Hayley. Mutually broke up with said girlfriend due to changes in life plans and circumstances. Decided to take a sabbatical; sold everything, got rid of the flat, went on a road trip for a few months, came back to said friend’s house. Had an increase in finances, have used this to take many, many trips to new and exciting places. While not disagreeing with my business partner, our wants and needs changed, leading me to fall out of love with our business and personal lifestyle. After many changes in the way I feel, think, and act and an eye-opening trip mid-2014, I decided it was time to; sell my business, sell my stuff, book some flights and change my life once and for all. After months of planning, organisation and mixed feelings I’ve now; sold my business, am finishing selling unnecessary stuff and have booked my flights. So how did I get here? Ah man, who...

Recently I’d been talking with an awesome content strategist who goes by the name of Gigi Griffis. In aid of us getting a project going Gigi invited this guy *points at self* along to a content strategy meetup and get together type thing in London. The long story short… it was pretty awesome. I won’t go into detail about what everyone had to say but I will say that each speaker had a very unique perspective and actually gave valuable takeaways – and let’s be fair, that’s very rarely the case as conferences. It’s usually very dry and vague, talking top level tactics which leaves people in the same position they were before! Anyway, the notes, in order of when they were jotted down and unedited; enjoy… Who are our users? If we don’t know everything about our users, we can’t do the necessary research into what’s needed. What do users need? Following from above, if we don’t know exactly what they need, we can’t provide the best service/content. Start listing all needs, in a spread sheet, mind map. This will get the content juices flowing. Use and draw up wireframes, do lots of testing and take in everyone’s opinion. More brain power the better! Launch, then test. Don’t dilly-dally and waste time. Make sure your company has a content style guide, words to avoid, what to say, everything! Team all sitting together allows for all content wording, design and development work to seamlessly flow together. Better end product! Create an ‘easy to understand how everything works’ page… a simple explanation page for your site/product/anything to make users experiences...

About a month ago after realising my life really is now changing and the possibility, nay probability, of my pending move away was driving ever closer. I decided it was time to create a bit of spare cash and focus my funds, time and effort into things I actually care about. Eh? What’errr don’t you care about? If you’re into online marketing, SEO and the world that comes with it – you’ll be no stranger to trying your best to spot gaps in the market, hunt down bargain domains and make some money. In this industry one can get so caught up in the excitement of starting something; what with all the freedom that comes with having your own business. Everyone is trying to ‘get on it’! With that… come wasted money, wasted time, and wasted talent. Robert De Niro said in A Bronx Tale (1993, awesome film) – “The saddest thing in life is wasted talent.” What I didn’t realise, consistently failed at and didn’t rectify quick enough was – properly assessing a purchase. I’d get far too excited about something, move in too quickly and end up with a domain name I’d do nothing with. At a time when finding a quality domain name is actually quite difficult, you feel the need to buy on the spot. Or not allow yourself enough thinking time. My portfolio of domains over the years has been ridiculous. With some of the silliest domains you’ve ever seen… 3dwomen.co.uk… yes it’s true *pulls ashamed face* is worth nothing. Yet some awesome domain name finds, especially for my company… binaryoptions.co.uk for example is...

So in late 2011 I stumbled upon an insanely high-volume trend which occurs every year. Mother’s Day, Mothering Sunday, that day we celebrate our Mothers… you know! It turns out that mother’s day is Googled every year between January and March, roughly, a whopping close-to-a-million (1,000,000) times. Finding out that the trend was also true for ‘mothers day 2011’ made the discovery all the more exciting. I quickly realised I could make easy money (surely, with those sorts of numbers!) year-on-year over the course of a couple of months. So I got down to work. That first year (2012) I made around £2,000 with little-to-no work between January and March. So, do it again this year? Of course! The question is… how did I do it the first time? Before we get into that, read about how I discovered the idea here. After The Discovery After making this discovery; it was obvious what needed to be done. Buy the domain and figure out how to monetise these close-to-a-million potential visitors later. I logged into my 123-reg.co.uk account and searched to find that mothersday2012.co.uk was available for registration. Needless to say I bought the domain, along with 2013, 2014 and 2015… Moving on… How do I Monetise the Domain? After a small amount of researching using affiliate blogs I decided the best course of action would be to set up an online store – whereby I make a percentage of every sale made. The store simply had to categorically serve mother’s day related gifts from other websites. Once again I navigated my way toward the Google keywords tool to find...

Recently I’ve been overly inspired by so many different things and have been trying my best to look at life in new ways. I’ve been watching a whole load of nature documentaries over the past few days, mainly narrated by David Attenborough – yes, he’s awesome – which have given me a tonne of new cool places to add to my bucket list. I decided to put together a list of my favourite inspirational quotes. I know I’ve missed hundreds and thousands of good ones, but I’ve willingly left out many too. The ones below are what I feel directly apply to myself, and therefore to like-minded people who read this blog! What I’d really appreciate is your views. Comment below with your personal favourite quotes… 1) “If you always do what you always did, you’ll always get what you always got.” – Albert Einstein 2) “The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man.” – George Bernard Shaw 3) “The elevator to success is out of order. You’ll have to use the stairs… one step at a time.” – Joe Girard 4) “The man who removes a mountain begins by carrying away small stones.” – Chinese Proverb 5) “They always say time changes things, but you actually have to change them yourself.” – Andy Warhol 6) “It is never too late to be what you might have been.” – George Eliot 7) “The impossible is often the untried.” – Jonathan Goodwin 8) “Discipline is the foundation upon which all...

In 2012 I managed to spend 3 whole months out of the UK, where I’m currently based. This was a huge achievement for me. As I told myself at the start of the year I should be able to spend at least 1 month doing what I like for every 3 months I work my arse off – *hears a round of applause*… a-thank you, a-thank you *bows*. Here’s the thing, there’s always a thing, it feels good, and I look back and see such an amazing year. But, I still feel like I’m not living those times enough. They are few and far between. I’m thinking this year maybe it should be an equal split? That’s fair right? Equal. For every 6 months of hard work I should be able to spend at least 6 months exploring the world, or sitting around at home doing nothing if I chose. Anyway, in light of my personal achievement in 2012; I’ve decided to start this year with a blast from the past post including all the awesome places I worked from in 2012. This is largely inspired by Sean’s post over at location 180 so don’t hate me for stealing the idea! In order of travel throughout the year… 1) Dunkirk, France This was my first and shortest trip of the year. My girlfriend and I woke up one Saturday morning, strangely early? and decided it would be a good idea to go to France. Later that night we were there and having a nice time. 2) Koh Samui, Thailand Wow. What a trip. Bargain too – managed to nail...

About Mikey Charalambous

"Mike is probably the most talkative guy I've ever known - if he has an 'off' button, I haven't found it! Commonly referred to as 'Chara', he has an uncanny ability to talk passionately about practically any subject. His energy and positivity is infectious. Expect to see him shredding up the dance floor, particularly when Michael Jackson drops. A lover of travel, adventure and meeting new people." - A Close Friend